8. Cassy
Chapter eight
Cassy
I ’m driving. Or at least, I think I’m driving. Everything’s fuzzy. The road, the lights, especially the lights.
Neon reds, electric blues, greens that melt into pinks, they all smear across my windshield like someone poured paint across the glass.
Rain hammers down in thick sheets, and the wipers are doing absolutely nothing except dragging the mess back and forth. The Vegas Strip, or something that looks vaguely like it, glows and pulses outside, but it’s not right. Everything’s moving too slow, too bright, too loud.
I lean forward, squinting. The traffic ahead is frozen. Just rows of brake lights glowing like a red warning. I press the brake pedal. Nothing. Harder. Still nothing.
“No. No. No, NO—”
The car keeps moving. Gliding toward the back of a truck that’s definitely not supposed to be getting this close this fast. My hands are locked on the steering wheel, but they’re not doing anything. Like I’m in the driver’s seat, but I’m not in control.
My chest tightens. The kind of panic that creeps in fast and sharp. I start to brace for the crash, and then—
He’s just there.
Blake.
One second, the passenger seat is empty. Next, he’s sitting next to me like it’s totally normal to materialize out of nowhere mid-crisis.
He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t even look at me.
I watch, wide-eyed, still half in whatever this is, as he opens the door, casual as anything, grabs onto the roof, and swings his legs out.
What the fuck…
He plants his feet on the asphalt. Somehow stays upright. His thighs strain against his pants as he skids along with the car, gripping the edge of the door like it’s nothing, slowing us down until we stop inches, inches , from slamming into the truck in front.
I blink. Once. Twice.
He turns to me with that same unreadable look on his face.
And then—
Dawn.
A soft grey light starts leaking in from the corner of the room, slipping under the blinds. The office window.
My brain lurches. The Strip dissolves. The rain disappears, and I’m on the sofa.
Still half in it, but not really. The kind of half-awake where nothing makes sense and everything feels like maybe it still could.
Blake’s face is suddenly in front of me, close, and blurred. He doesn’t speak. Just lowers his head and presses a kiss on my forehead. Warm. Soft. Real.
I breathe in.
He’s dressed. His shirt is buttoned, his hair flopping over his eyes as he runs his hand through it.
He moves around the office without saying a word, picking up my clothes from the floor. My blouse, my bra, my heels. He gathers them like he's not still half feral from last night. Like he didn't fuck the living daylights out of me on this couch for hours.
He places my clothes in a neat pile on the corner of my desk, then shrugs out of his jacket and drapes it over me.
My mouth parts to say something. Anything. But I don't.
I just watch him walk across the dark office, open the door, and leave.
The second it clicks shut, my eyes are already slipping shut again.
Everything aches. My hips, my thighs, the spot at the base of my spine where the armrest dug in. But it's not pain. It's the good kind. The kind you feel in your bones and deep in your belly.
I shift slightly, and the leather of the sofa sticks to my bare skin. I sigh, curling tighter under his jacket.
The smell of him is still on it. Clean sweat and warm skin.
I open my eyes again. I’m wide awake now. And yeah. The office looks... wrecked.
No. Not wrecked. Violated.
My desk’s crooked. One leg is bent like it tried to give up halfway through. The computer monitor’s practically hanging off the edge, twisted at a weird angle. A pen lies near my shoe. There’s a stapler, my planner, and a couple of very private HR forms on the carpet.
“Jesus, Cassy,” I mutter into the quiet, sitting up and pulling his jacket tighter around me.
I remember what he asked me. “So, Cassy. What was it you wanted to talk to me about?”
And I’d just stared at him, all smug and satisfied and lazy as hell, and whispered, “I’ll tell you another time.”
Idiot.
I swing my legs off the couch and wince at the feel of the cold air on my skin. My body’s still humming from everything we did.
And underneath it all, between my thighs and deep down to the core of me, is that same hot, swollen, pulsing beat. Like my body refuses to forget him.
I flop back onto the couch, groaning.
“Today,” I whisper into the silence. “Definitely. Today I’ll tell him.”
But first… Coffee. Breakfast. Home. Shower. And not necessarily in that order.
I pull Blake’s jacket tighter around me as I gather the mess that is my clothes and shimmy back into something resembling decency.
My blouse is still half buttoned, my bra’s twisted like it survived a bar fight, one shoe is missing a heel, and I’m not even going to start on my hair.
The walk of shame isn’t supposed to involve your own office.
Or security cameras. By the time I make it home, I’m equal parts euphoric and mentally spiraling.
Last night? Fireworks. Off-the-charts, illegal-in-some-states, full-body meltdown levels of hot. Blake was…everything. And more.
And—okay, no, focus.
This morning? A giant neon sign inside my head blinks: YOU DIDN’T TELL HIM.
I twist my key in the lock and shove the front door open, my laptop bag dangling from one hand, my bra stuffed in it like some kind of secret shame.
“CASSY! Get in here NOW!”
There it is. The familiar, father-shaped migraine.
I close my eyes, mutter, “Welcome home,” and step inside.
I’m immediately hit with the warm, comforting scent of brewing coffee and toast, which would be good if it weren’t paired with the homely soundtrack of my father shouting like I’d just crashed a car into the dining table.
As I’m toeing off my heels, or heel, Martha appears from the hallway like some kind of middle-class apparition in a matching sweater set and apron, holding a dishcloth.
She pauses mid-step when she sees me. Her eyes go wide.
Massive wide.
The kind of wide that says, “Oh, girl, you’re in it now.”
And yeah, I know. I look like trouble. My blouse is barely buttoned, there's a suspicious bite mark on my collarbone, and my lipstick is… not on my lips anymore.
“Morning,” I offer.
Martha just raises her eyebrows, does a dramatic full-body sigh, and heads off like she wants no part of this.
“Coward,” I mutter under my breath, letting my bag drop with a satisfying thud beside the ornamental table my father insists is antique but definitely came cheap in some closing-down sale years ago.
Dragging myself down the hall, I hear the scrape of cutlery, the unmistakable slam of a newspaper, and the sharp exhale of someone who’s probably been pacing since first light, just waiting to ambush me.
Jesus Christ. Does he never let up?
I push open the dining room door, plaster a big fat smile across my face that hurts more than it should, and step inside.
“Alright, alright, I’m here. What’s up?”
He’s standing by the head of the table, arms braced, the veins on his neck doing their usual stress-pop.
And suddenly I’m not just Cassy, a woman on the brink of telling her lover she’s pregnant. I’m Cassy, the daughter, the one who came home wearing last night’s clothes, and apparently, the next contestant in the “Who Wants to Disappoint Dad?” reality show.
I take a deep breath.
God help me. This is not a conversation I want to have before coffee.
Dad looks up, his arms tense, his mouth tight, and then, just to really send the drama into orbit, he glances at his wrist like he’s wearing a watch, which he isn’t. Never has. Never will. But he still commits to the act. “And what sort of time do you call this?”
I glance at the actual clock on the wall. “Seven-thirty a.m. Why, what would you call it?”
“Don’t get clever with me, young lady. I’ve told you, while you live under my roof, you live un-”
“-der your rules,” I finish, approaching the table and snatching a piece of bacon off his plate like some kind of breakfast pirate. “Yeah, I know. You keep telling me.”
He narrows his eyes, and I do the mature thing. I drop into the chair opposite him, pour myself coffee like nothing’s happening, and try to channel the patience of a woman who hasn’t just walked out of her office still aching from the best sex of her life.
“So,” he asks, like the world’s nosiest prosecuting attorney. “Where have you been all night? I was worried.”
I sip my coffee, steeling myself for the usual parental inquisition. “Dad, for God’s sake. It’s none of your business. When are you going to accept I’m not a little girl? I’m twenty-two years old.”
He takes a deep breath, leans back, and I watch him do that thing where he tries to calm himself before saying something dramatic. “That may be. But you’re still my little girl.”
“Oh, Dad. You’re so sweet. Now pass the bacon, please.”
“No.” He levels a stare at me and sits down. “This is not over just because you want it to be.” He finishes his coffee and takes a deliberate bite of his breakfast like we’re in the middle of some kind of standoff and the food is Switzerland.
I want out of this conversation. I really do. But bacon exists. And so does coffee. And I’m not about to let either go to waste just to avoid a dad-rant.
So, classic me, subject change. I toss it like a grenade. “Dad?”
“What?” he mutters, chews, finishes his coffee, then folds his newspaper like it’s going to be graded for neatness.
I keep eating. Eggs, toast, the whole works. But I don’t take my eyes off him. I just keep staring.
He huffs. “What are you staring at?”
“What’s different about you?”
He groans. “Uh? I’ve—” he runs a hand through his hair “—I’ve had a haircut.”
I lean in, squinting. “Oh wow... You look so much more handsome. I’m impressed.”
His face does that weird thing where it looks like it’s trying to simultaneously short-circuit and combust. “Yes…umm… thank you.”